What matters MOST with Guitar Tone?

[AROIOS]

Love this guy's approach on audio engineering. Far too many people out there offer their opinions/reviews based on biases, imagination and wishful thinking.

[Notes_Norton]

I didn't get the video to play (U Tube is excessively buffering again), but here is my opinion.

 

As long as the tone is in the ballpark for the genre of music you are playing, tone doesn't matter at all. What matters is the way the player expresses himself/herself when playing the instrument.

 

Which tone is better??? ... Hendrix? Slash? Kath? Richards? Page? Beck? Clapton? Pass? Ellis? Santana? Raitt? Perry? WInter? Fripp? Walsh? Burrell? Knopfler? Prince? Gibbons? May? Iommi? Guy? Atkins? Watson? Gilmour? Vaughan? Allman? Berry? King (any of the 3)? ... ... ... and on which guitar/amp?

 

Take singers, there are hit singers with less than hit voices, Dr. John, Stevie Nicks, John Lennon, Blossom Dearie, etc., but they have their fandom not because they have a great voice, but because they expressed themselves in a way that touched their audience.

 

The two most influential jazz saxophonists of the 20th century are Stan Getz and John Coltrane. They both played the same make/model sax. If you played their recordings back-to-back for an uneducated listener, they would think they are playing entirely different instruments.

 

When I was young, most people listened to music on 45RPM records, then Cassettes, followed by low bit-rate mp3s. This is a list of the major tone killers. How can you tell, on these formats, good tone from bad?

 

So I say "Tone Schmone". Work on your expression, phrasing, musical ornaments, vibrato, intonation (both on and intentionally off), dynamics, and all the other things that turn empty notes into music, and you'll get more mileage than worrying about the finest points of your tone.

 

Of course, that's just my opinion.

 

Insights and incites by Notes ♫

[KuruPrionz]

I can't get it to play either. So I don't know what he is talking about, yet. I have seen a bit of this gentleman's ish on YouTube, it will be interesting to hear his spin. I don't know if he is a guitarist, I do know that he is a recording technician, perhaps he is both. 

I'll try again later, it jammed up both on here and on YouTube. 

 

In the meantime, I've got well over 50 years of playing guitar behind me. The thing that matters most is WHO is playing the guitar. The next thing that matters is "what does that particular song need?" 

 

Most guitarists I know are creatures of habit, how they learned is how they tend to play. If that doesn't sound good for that song, it probably isn't going to change any time soon. The biggest factor I hear in other guitarists is tension. Sadly, many players started out with heavy strings and high action and will use excessive force when playing because that habit is formed and solidly in place. That is not always true, I've spent a great deal of time learning to fingerpick, play nylon string, steel string acoustic, 12 string, slide etc. in addition to playing electric guitar. I've found time and again that relaxing both left hand grip and right hand techniques results in a much wider range of available tones.

 

If you play hard, you get the sound of strings being played hard and that's pretty much it. If you can play softly AND pummel away as the part calls for it, then you have a palette of tones available to suit any purpose. Strings can be made to sing sweetly or they can howl like a wounded steer. 

 

A few years back I intentionally switched to heavy picks for live work - 2mm Gator turned out to be my chosen pick for live work. I can play very softly with that heavy pick so I have a larger dynamic range than somebody who always strikes with tension and/or uses a much lighter pick. Sometimes I just leave my guitar turned full up with a sweet, medium gain tone and just adjust for soloing or backing up the song with pick force alone.

 

Fingerpicking is a different approach, in my experience a heavy pick is more likely to act as a movable fret and there will be an almost instantaneous note blended with the transient attack when using a heavy pick. It's unlikely that anybody will notice that when the band is playing. It WILL show up loud and clear on a recording though. 

 

A couple of years ago I expanded my boundaries of relaxation by scalloping my fretboard on my main gigger. Tension simply won't work at all, you will push the strings out of tune. A light touch with the left hand is all that is needed and it's very easy to play bends, double and triple stop goodies, etc. 

 

Recording is different, another world. The importance of the guitarist's approach is still paramount but you WILL notice the use of heavier picks or excessive tension more when recording. Transients are at higher levels and a certain "smoothness" is lost unless you provide some distance. One way to do that is to mic the guitar or amplifier and move the mic back a bit. That does even things up. Placement of microphones adds another layer of complexity but allows for a wider range of tones from a guitarist who can only sound like how they sound. Which area of a speaker is mic'ed up or where the mic is aimed at an acoustic guitar can make a big difference in how the tone records, regardless of guitarist. That said, it is ALWAYS the guitarist themselves who is the consideration regarding what tone you are seeking. 

 

Another approach is to switch to much lighter picks and/or use fingers to pick as applicable. 

What matters most is the guitarist. I'll stand by that and I will agree that measures can be taken to change that impression if recording but in the end - it's the player. 

[Anderton]

Well, I was able to see the video. He says his tests are all about metal music, and I get that, but you have to be clear that can't be extrapolated to just any form of music. For example, the part about the hands would be very different if the players had used nylon-string guitars.

 

And tonewood definitely affects sustain. I guess it's semantics whether or not you think that qualifies as "tone," but you can't just dismiss tonewood as irrelevant. I do think swamp ash sounds different from mahogany, but I don't have two guitars that are identical except for the bodies. Different fingerboards also sound different to me, but maybe it's factors other than the fingerboard I'm hearing. Again, I don't have two guitars that are identical in all respects except for the fingerboard.

 

Coming to the conclusion that different cabs sound different is kind of a no-brainer - it's the only element he investigated that was post-distortion! To me, tone is a combination lock of factors. And people have to watch out when the invoke "science." Someone mentioned to me that Rick Beato did a video where he was surprised that heavy strings didn't sustain better than thin strings. But did he change the pickup's distance from the strings? I think there would be more magnetic drag on the heavy gauge strings, which reduces sustain (and is why I keep pickups pretty far from the strings).

 

So ultimately, I agree that a lot of the myths about guitar tone are just that - myths. But if you're not smothering a guitar with distortion, you'll hear a lot more differences. For example, scale length makes a difference in tone.

[RABid]

Lead guitarists have an advantage in that they are given the entire spectrum when developing their tone. As a keyboardist I learned early that it was polite not to take up too much space. Leave room for the bass. Leave room for the rhythm guitarist. Don't worry about the lead guitarists, he is going to overpower you anyway.

[KuruPrionz]

5 minutes ago, Anderton said:

Well, I was able to see the video. He says his tests are all about metal music, and I get that, but you have to be clear that can't be extrapolated to just any form of music. For example, the part about the hands would be very different if the players had used nylon-string guitars.

 

And tonewood definitely affects sustain. I guess it's semantics whether or not you think that qualifies as "tone," but you can't just dismiss tonewood as irrelevant. I do think swamp ash sounds different from mahogany, but I don't have two guitars that are identical except for the bodies. Different fingerboards also sound different to me, but maybe it's factors other than the fingerboard I'm hearing. Again, I don't have two guitars that are identical in all respects except for the fingerboard

 

Coming to the conclusion that different cabs sound different is kind of a no-brainer - it's the only element he investigated that was post-distortion! To me, tone is a combination lock of factors. And people have to watch out when the invoke "science." Someone mentioned to me that Rick Beato did a video where he was surprised that heavy strings didn't sustain better than thin strings. But did he change the pickup's distance from the strings? I think there would be more magnetic drag on the heavy gauge strings, which reduces sustain (and is why I keep pickups pretty far from the strings).

 

So ultimately, I agree that a lot of the myths about guitar tone are just that - myths. But if you're not smothering a guitar with distortion, you'll hear a lot more differences. For example, scale length makes a difference in tone.

Great observations and all true!

Tone wood does influence tone, especially if it is in the "string path". Construction changes tone as well, my 335 does NOT sound like a Les Paul or SG and in large part because it is semi hollow. It also doesn't sound like most 335s because it has no F holes and an ebony fretboard (tone wood in the string path, right there).

 

Many hairs to split but I still think it comes down to the guitarist first. Metal only? I'd put the amp head before the speaker cab, a Marshall does not sound like a Mesa and there are different flavors of each one. That's just for one thing, there are many details if we go out into the weeds. 

[Anderton]

2 minutes ago, RABid said:

Lead guitarists have an advantage in that they are given the entire spectrum when developing their tone. As a keyboardist I learned early that it was polite not to take up too much space. Leave room for the bass. Leave room for the rhythm guitarist. Don't worry about the lead guitarists, he is going to overpower you anyway.

 

I'm not sure if you're familiar with my "tightener" technique, but it's basically four sharp notch filters tuned to specific keys (e.g., 110, 220, 440, and 880 Hz for A). If I drop that EQ into a guitar track, keyboards become more prominent and vice-versa.

[KuruPrionz]

8 minutes ago, RABid said:

Lead guitarists have an advantage in that they are given the entire spectrum when developing their tone. As a keyboardist I learned early that it was polite not to take up too much space. Leave room for the bass. Leave room for the rhythm guitarist. Don't worry about the lead guitarists, he is going to overpower you anyway.

I try to leave room for everybody. If the singer is singing I play little  chimey bits here and there. If the keyboard is soloing I may quietly groove under the bassist and leave room. 

We can all come up with observations regarding other players but they are personal and situational for the most part. 

It's super cool that you leave room for the bass, I've played with some keyboardists who clog up the low end something fierce. 

 

I think the more we all listen and try to serve the song, the better. I've been the lead singer more than a few times, nothing worse than trying to sing over the barrage that some bands can generate out of enthusiasm. 

[KuruPrionz]

OK, I got almost 2 minutes in. The 3 guitarists who all sound the same because the gain is so high that everything sounds the same only prove that our friend dispensing wisdom is pretty much missing the entire point. 

 

If the amp was set to a full, vibrant clean tone then it is possible that 3 guitarists could sound quite different. If you cherry pick heavy metal gain churners then no, you can go to Guitar Center on a busy day and hear shit like that until you want to kill. 

 

I can't be arsed to waste any more time on somebody who is trying to create facts out of nonsense. 

[AROIOS]

3 hours ago, KuruPrionz said:

OK, I got almost 2 minutes in. The 3 guitarists who all sound the same because the gain is so high that everything sounds the same only prove that our friend dispensing wisdom is pretty much missing the entire point. 

 

If the amp was set to a full, vibrant clean tone then it is possible that 3 guitarists could sound quite different. If you cherry pick heavy metal gain churners then no, you can go to Guitar Center on a busy day and hear shit like that until you want to kill. 

 

I can't be arsed to waste any more time on somebody who is trying to create facts out of nonsense. 

Yeah, everyone on this thread has offered excellent points about the few "myths" the YT author tried to debunk. He should have added "Metal" in front of "Guitar Tone" in the vid title.

With that said, his approach of minimizing the amount of variants in a controlled test still resonates with my geeky side. Clean tone tests/reviews (Blues, Jazz, Funk etc) can certainly benefit from a similar approach.

[KuruPrionz]

7 hours ago, AROIOS said:

Yeah, everyone on this thread has offered excellent points about the few "myths" the YT author tried to debunk. He should have added "Metal" in front of "Guitar Tone" in the vid title.

With that said, his approach of minimizing the amount of variants in a controlled test still resonates with my geeky side. Clean tone tests/reviews (Blues, Jazz, Funk etc) can certainly benefit from a similar approach.

As I mentioned, I could only take a couple of minutes of that.

 

I am both a guitarist and a recordist with a humble home studio. I do record other players on occasion, you have to understand how a guitarist plays to get their best performance recorded. 

Minimizing variants may "serve the recording tech" but that's not the goal. Putting the cart before the horse won't get you there.

3 simple words - Serve the song. If your technique for recording serves the song then you are on the right track. It is not, and can never be a "one size fits all" situation. 

 

I'll stand by what I said above, both on variations and on tendencies. 

[zeronyne]

I always appreciate his enthusiasm and energy, but “almost controlled conditions and variables” is not the same or even close to “controlled conditions and variables” which is why there is never a conclusion to these arguments.

[Anderton]

The important part is specifying a test's parameters upfront. For example, if at the beginning he'd said "let's find out if massive amounts of distortion render the type of guitar and playing style less relevant," no one would question the results of that part of the test. If he'd then said "let's find out if saturating a tube heavily reduces any potential tonal difference among tubes," again, no one would question the results. 

[KuruPrionz]

OK, I watched the entire video - pseudo-frantic vocalizations accompanied by the "f bomb" included. I'm not offended, just bored. Clever people can find more interesting ways to couch derogatory statements. 😬 

 

Yes, he is correct. Changing speakers can change the way an amp sounds. 

 

I've been swapping speakers in guitar amps since the 80's and so have many guitarists that I know. 

This is somehow "news"? Uhhh...no.

 

That said, his title is misleading. I agree with Craig above, he should have been far more specific regarding the parameters of his tedious "testing", first one being Heavy Metal. I've nothing against it, used to play in a Heavy Metal Funk band in Fresno. I swapped my speakers then and I swap them now. 

 

There have been very few amps I've owned that I kept the original speakers in the cabinets. Not one of the 9 Mesa amps I owned and gigged had the original speaker in it until I put it back in to sell the amp, all of them sounded much better with my chosen replacement. If I'd bought any Mesa amps with the EVM 12 in the cab I would have left those in there. None of the many Fenders, not the Allen Accomplice or the Red Plate Blues Machine - almost everything got swapped out. I almost never used stamped frame speakers either, cast frame speakers are stiff enough to prevent some cabinet resonances that I didn't want to hear. EV, JBL and... Peavey!!!! Just about my all time favorite guitar amp speakers are 12" Scorpion Plus and 10" Scorpion speakers, both Peavey. 

 

I'm glad he didn't try any of my favorites, he might have pooped himself. Can't have that. Ugh... 😇

 

[Anderton]

28 minutes ago, The Real MC said:

I got off the high gain bandwagon years ago

 

I think one reason why many guitar players have an unfavorable opinion of amp sims is they turn up drive waaaaay too much and don't pay enough attention to the input signal. Garbage in, garbage out. The more you pull back on the drive, the more an amp sim (or amp) can reflect the nuances of your playing.

[Notes_Norton]

On 7/29/2022 at 12:20 PM, KuruPrionz said:

In the meantime, I've got well over 50 years of playing guitar behind me. The thing that matters most is WHO is playing the guitar. The next thing that matters is "what does that particular song need?" 

 

Most guitarists I know are creatures of habit, how they learned is how they tend to play. If that doesn't sound good for that song, it probably isn't going to change any time soon. The biggest factor I hear in other guitarists is tension. Sadly, many players started out with heavy strings and high action and will use excessive force when playing because that habit is formed and solidly in place. That is not always true, I've spent a great deal of time learning to fingerpick, play nylon string, steel string acoustic, 12 string, slide etc. in addition to playing electric guitar. I've found time and again that relaxing both left hand grip and right hand techniques results in a much wider range of available tones.

Guitar is my 7th instrument. And I picked it up later in life so I have a long way to go. I use 9-42 strings and with the advice of fellow guitarists, I try to keep a light but accurate touch on the strings.

 

Sax is my primary instrument. A lot of sax players like to put the equivalent of heavy strings on their sax, a thick, stiff reed. My reeds are on the softer side because it allows a greater variation of tones. I can play from airy subtones, to sweet ballad tones or overblow to get a wild rock/blues sound and anything in between.

 

When I play, I use my technical skills, experience, and talent to play to serve the song. I listen to all the other players, and take that into account to decide what I play. I use all the techniques I've learned, and am still learning, to make the song as good as I can for the listener.

 

If that means doing something that school taught me was wrong, or right, that's what I'll do.

 

I also have a problem with so-called tone wood (others will disagree, and that's OK).

 

I took electronics in college, and worked for a while as a Cable TV Field Engineer when I was trying out what it is to be normal (normal was overrated for me).

 

The guitar pickups, unless defective, are not microphones. You can mute the strings and shout into the pickup as loud as you can and nothing will come out the amp.

 

The pickup is totally electrical, and zero percent acoustical.

 

The magnet in the pickup sets up a magnetic field, and the strings disturb that magnetic field. This creates a small electric current in approximately the frequency and wave shape of the strings. BTW, this is how the power company generates electricity for your home. The turbine turns a coil of wires around a N/S magnet (or vice versa) at in the US 60 rotations per second, and the disturbing of that magnetic field induces a 60 cycles per second sine wave electric current. The magnet and coil are much bigger and so the amount of electricity is much greater.

 

Now, I do concede that the guitar does some vibrating, so it is moving the magnet a bit to distort that wave. But the movement of the strings is thousands of times greater than the movement of the pickup, and in electronics class, they tell us that anything under 10% doesn't matter. So the resistors, capacitors and all other electronic components in your guitar, fx boxes and amps are within 90% of their intended value. This will make more of a difference than the wood by a factor of thousands.

 

I say the biggest influence on your guitar tone is the pickup, followed by your hands, and all the electronics from the pickup through to the speaker.

 

But I may be overthinking this.

 

Notes ♫

 

 

 

[KuruPrionz]

51 minutes ago, Notes_Norton said:

Guitar is my 7th instrument. And I picked it up later in life so I have a long way to go. I use 9-42 strings and with the advice of fellow guitarists, I try to keep a light but accurate touch on the strings.

 

Sax is my primary instrument. A lot of sax players like to put the equivalent of heavy strings on their sax, a thick, stiff reed. My reeds are on the softer side because it allows a greater variation of tones. I can play from airy subtones, to sweet ballad tones or overblow to get a wild rock/blues sound and anything in between.

 

When I play, I use my technical skills, experience, and talent to play to serve the song. I listen to all the other players, and take that into account to decide what I play. I use all the techniques I've learned, and am still learning, to make the song as good as I can for the listener.

 

If that means doing something that school taught me was wrong, or right, that's what I'll do.

 

I also have a problem with so-called tone wood (others will disagree, and that's OK).

 

I took electronics in college, and worked for a while as a Cable TV Field Engineer when I was trying out what it is to be normal (normal was overrated for me).

 

The guitar pickups, unless defective, are not microphones. You can mute the strings and shout into the pickup as loud as you can and nothing will come out the amp.

 

The pickup is totally electrical, and zero percent acoustical.

 

The magnet in the pickup sets up a magnetic field, and the strings disturb that magnetic field. This creates a small electric current in approximately the frequency and wave shape of the strings. BTW, this is how the power company generates electricity for your home. The turbine turns a coil of wires around a N/S magnet (or vice versa) at in the US 60 rotations per second, and the disturbing of that magnetic field induces a 60 cycles per second sine wave electric current. The magnet and coil are much bigger and so the amount of electricity is much greater.

 

Now, I do concede that the guitar does some vibrating, so it is moving the magnet a bit to distort that wave. But the movement of the strings is thousands of times greater than the movement of the pickup, and in electronics class, they tell us that anything under 10% doesn't matter. So the resistors, capacitors and all other electronic components in your guitar, fx boxes and amps are within 90% of their intended value. This will make more of a difference than the wood by a factor of thousands.

 

I say the biggest influence on your guitar tone is the pickup, followed by your hands, and all the electronics from the pickup through to the speaker.

 

But I may be overthinking this.

 

Notes ♫

 

 

 

The "string path" does matter but it's a combination of things. "Tonewood" can be a factor but generally speaking not a very significant one on a solid body guitar. On an acoustic guitar it can make a very noticeable difference beyond any doubt. Bridge hardware matters, pickup height matters (I can make a stock Strat play horribly out of tune even if the intonation is spot on to start with, just by raising all three pickups too close to the strings - magnetic drag can really mess things up). 

 

[Steve Nathan]

What I took from this is that (no surprise) in the un-nuanced world of Metal, where the gear gaks the sound into oblivion, you overpower all the nuances a good player would contribute.  How anyone could miss this is beyond me.  I would not want this guy behind the board for any of my sessions.  If I were to pick up Brent Mason's or Tom Bukovac's guitar and start to play, I guarantee you could hear the difference.

[Anderton]

For an even more obvious example, I play with a hard thumbpick. The sound is totally different compared to using a thin pick, or my fingers, without a pick. I often will hit a chord with the back of my fingers, so the nails make the actual contact with the strings. This is also different from the thumbpick sound, and I can alternate between them in a single song to get tonal (and "feel") variety.

 

And I bet ANYONE could tell the difference between a bass player who uses fingers vs. pick. Unless, of course, they're going through an amp with 100% THD

[CEB]

5 minutes ago, CEB said:

Gear is overrated.  Other than hands the most important thing is just knowing what the hell your doing and that can be very different based on goals and settings.  I finger pick, flat pick and play a lot with Fred Kelly thumb picks. Depends on the gig.  
 

Played with sub guitarist last week.   He had okay hands.  Had a pedal board that cost as much as my house.  Guitar was so wet in $400 verb pedals the guitar washed out in the mix.   Understanding EQ helps a bunch …. Just learning how it’s done.  It helps a lot when young dogs listen to old dogs. Knowledge is power if you practice it.  Like driving a car.   That’s why car insurance cost less for a 25 year old than a 16 year old.  

 

[AlamoJoe]

On 7/29/2022 at 11:41 AM, Anderton said:

 

I'm not sure if you're familiar with my "tightener" technique, but it's basically four sharp notch filters tuned to specific keys (e.g., 110, 220, 440, and 880 Hz for A). If I drop that EQ into a guitar track, keyboards become more prominent and vice-versa.

Trouble you for a link to your technique stated here? 😎

[AlamoJoe]

The Gear Page is littered with the different tonewood hills players have chosen to die on. 🤣

[CEB]

Tone woods heh … I have Teles made of : Alder, Swamp Ash, Pine, cheap ass Poplar stuff,  they all sound like Telecasters.   
 

“Volume is tone. “ - Edward Van Halen

[Anderton]

2 hours ago, AlamoJoe said:

Trouble you for a link to your technique stated here? 😎

 

Sure! This blog post applies to Studio One, but EQ is EQ. Unless, of course, the EQs are made out of different pixels  I think the pixels in Studio One are mahogany.

[Anderton]

BTW...one of tests you do with the tightener is to have two tracks with similar frequency response profiles, like guitar and keyboards. If you insert the tightener in the guitar, you'll swear someone turned up the keyboard, even though it's the same level. Same thing with guitar, if you put the tightener in the keyboard track.

[Notes_Norton]

6 hours ago, Anderton said:

For an even more obvious example, I play with a hard thumbpick. The sound is totally different compared to using a thin pick, or my fingers, without a pick. I often will hit a chord with the back of my fingers, so the nails make the actual contact with the strings. This is also different from the thumbpick sound, and I can alternate between them in a single song to get tonal (and "feel") variety.

 

And I bet ANYONE could tell the difference between a bass player who uses fingers vs. pick. Unless, of course, they're going through an amp with 100% THD

Back in my bass playing days (which weren't that long) I used fingers on a P Bass live.

 

We did a couple of sessions and the engineer asked me to use a pick and said it would make it sound clearer when it gets to vinyl.

 

I was a big kid at the time, so I complied.

 

And

On 7/30/2022 at 3:34 PM, KuruPrionz said:

he "string path" does matter but it's a combination of things. "Tonewood" can be a factor but generally speaking not a very significant one on a solid body guitar. On an acoustic guitar it can make a very noticeable difference beyond any doub

 

Agreed.

 

I have a Gibson ES330 and an Epiphone Casino. Both hollow body archtop electrics with P90 pickups.

 

When unplugged, there is quite a difference in their tones. The Gibson has more midrange tones, and the overtones are much richer. The Epi tone is tinnier and thinner with much more bite.

 

With the same brand strings on them, plug them in, turn the tone control to treble (so it filters out less) and it's hard to tell the difference. The difference is probably string height and the year of the pickups (1970 and 2000), and it's so slight you have to listen very carefully to hear the difference.

 

Hands (including picks), strings, and pickups set the tone, the eq circuit in the guitar modifies it first, then each component in the chain to the speaker and even the acoustics of the room change the tone even more.

 

But for an electric guitar, personally, I think tonewood is nothing more than a way to get more money out of the buyer.

 

On an acoustic guitar, tonewood is quite relevant.

 

I'm an adequate guitarist for what I do, which is limited to rock and blues. I do what I do well, but what I can do is limited. My main instrument is saxophone followed by wind synthesizer. I have a Parker Dragonfly with Duncan P-Rail pickups. That gives me P90, Rail, Series Humbucker and Parallel Humbucker tones. I mainly use the P90 setting. After playing P90 a lot, everything else sounds dull. It also has a piezo under the bridge that sounds pretty thin by itself, but can be useful to blend in with the mag pickups.

 

The tone changes are for me more than the audience. I listen with a musician's ear. For the audience it's the notes I play, when I play them, how I phase them, and what ornaments I tend to use and when.

 

Sax tone is for me too, and I can express myself much better on the horn than I can with the strings.

 

We're gigging 14-16 one-nighters (day or night) per in the summer, which around here is unheard of before COVID. I guess people were jonsing for music the past couple of years. I'm having fun, the audience keeps coming back, so everything is good. When a musician is gigging, all is well in the world.

 

Insights and incites by Notes ♫

 

 

[Anderton]

16 hours ago, Notes_Norton said:

But for an electric guitar, personally, I think tonewood is nothing more than a way to get more money out of the buyer.

 

If it was called "sustainwood," we wouldn't be having this discussion   Denser woods do make a difference with sustain, because less of the string energy is transferred to the wood through the bridge.

 

The wood that grows closer to the river (or other water source) feeding a forest is denser than the wood higher up the hills. Gibson paid a premium price for the denser wood, and used it in their higher-end guitars. This is also why their more expensive guitars weighed more.

[KuruPrionz]

12 minutes ago, Anderton said:

 

If it was called "sustainwood," we wouldn't be having this discussion   Denser woods do make a difference with sustain, because less of the string energy is transferred to the wood through the bridge.

 

The wood that grows closer to the river (or other water source) feeding a forest is denser than the wood higher up the hills. Gibson paid a premium price for the denser wood, and used it in their higher-end guitars. This is also why their more expensive guitars weighed more.

It's also why I jumped at the opportunity to buy a Gibson ES-335 Studio model in 1988 (it's an 86). 

The fretboard is a slab of ebony, much denser than the usual rosewood and a better "sustainwood".

I think it looks cooler too. Then I refretted it with Dunlop 6100 super jumbo wire - "sustainfrets", put Sperzel locking "sustaintuners" on it and reworked the bridge to bolt down a Schecter TOM "sustainbridge" that has 2 intonation adjustment screws per saddle, (one each front and back) that essentially lock the saddles permanently into place. I haven't adjusted the intonation or action since 1989 and it's perfect. Plus it sustains like a Les Paul but easier to catch feedback since the body is semi-hollow. I also removed the plastic nut and replaced it with a dense bone nut. 

 

The variations, they are endless and often subtle but I've found that they are both additive and subtractive. In other words, do everything you can to increase sustain and it will be easy to tell the difference. Since adding sustain equals reducing resonances (which suck energy out of the strings at specific frequencies), it also increases the evenness of the response, giving the player more control over that aspect. 

 

If you are into tweaking your guitars, judging the individual effects of changing parts may not provide notable results. It can be an "all or nothing" thing in my experience.

Figure out what your goal is and then do EVERYTHING possible to achieve it and there will be a difference. 

 

That said, I doubt my 335 sounds much different than the other guitars Mr. Metal Boy used in his "testing" since he had the gain settings at "Guitar Center Heavy Metal Rodent Children" and left them there. You can test everything you want but with high gain settings you aren't going to prove much. Since the speaker comes AFTER the amp, it is one of the few things that will make a difference in the tone, the others being, which mics do you use and where do you put them and it which room? Hmmm... duh?

[Notes_Norton]

4 hours ago, Anderton said:

 

If it was called "sustainwood," we wouldn't be having this discussion   Denser woods do make a difference with sustain, because less of the string energy is transferred to the wood through the bridge.

 

The wood that grows closer to the river (or other water source) feeding a forest is denser than the wood higher up the hills. Gibson paid a premium price for the denser wood, and used it in their higher-end guitars. This is also why their more expensive guitars weighed more.

I definitely have no problem with sustainwood.

 

I suppose wood isn't the only thing that affects sustain, but I can see denser wood being a major factor in longer sustain.

 

Notes ♫

[KuruPrionz]

2 hours ago, Notes_Norton said:

I definitely have no problem with sustainwood.

 

I suppose wood isn't the only thing that affects sustain, but I can see denser wood being a major factor in longer sustain.

 

Notes ♫

What I call "fugitive threads" are capable of resonance, if they do resonate they can not only drain energy from the string, they can re-adjust. I've seen this many times, the action on one or two strings on a Strat bridge will have re-adjusted to a lower action, OR the intonation will have shifted. Since there is both downward pressure and "pull" on the saddle they always shift to lower action and sharper intonation. I'm talking about guitars I set up myself for customers coming back to the shop and things have vibrated into a new place. That will rob sustain. 

Another weak point is created if there is any significant string length between the bridge and the tail piece and/or between the nut and tuning machines. 

 

I was tracking a 12 string in the studio for somebody's project and the engineer came in and said that my guitar had a strange resonant sound. I played it while he put his finger in various places on the body and neck. When he set his finger across the strings by the nut, the resonance stopped. We put a strip of foam under the strings, didn't look great but the problem stopped and we got the track recorded.